


Made For Sorrow

by glxybbs



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: ALL OF IT, I’m sorry, M/M, There is no fluff, There’s loose mentions of torture but I don’t go into detail, i posted this on tumblr ages ago and it still makes me sad, it’s all angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 14:22:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16955646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glxybbs/pseuds/glxybbs
Summary: Brian is a cop who was kidnapped whilst on an undercover mission to infiltrate the cities largest drug traffickers. This book follows his journey home.





	1. Not Dead.

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings for mentions of implied torture (nothing gruesome!!), blood, mentions of death

Brian couldn't see. Ropes burned at his ankles and his wrists, deep trenches rubbing his pale skin raw. His complexion was covered in cuts and bruises, blood dripping slowly from his nose and dried against his cheeks, bright red slowly shifting towards dark crimson as time went on. His head lolled forwards from exhaustion, a quiet groan hitting the cold atmosphere and combatting the faint dripping that came from a pipe in the corner. 

His mouth was drier than the Sahara Desert in the middle of the day. His stomach growled loudly, screaming for him to find something to eat. His chest burned with harsh and unforgiving anxiety, the flame building and the smoke billowing out of his lungs and making its way up towards his brain. He could barely feel his hands anymore, and whether that was from the tightness of the ropes or the temperature of the room, was a complete mystery. 

"Hanby, it's lovely to see you alive." 

Brian gritted his teeth as his head was pulled up, a cold hand yanking his hair upwards and forcing his gaze to lift from the ripped surface of his trousers to the black screen that was sat before him. That hadn't been there before, had it? 

"Figured it's time we gave you a nice surprise... 'Specially after all the shit you told us last night." 

Brian had to withhold his smirk at that statement. His 'confessions' had all been bullshit plucked from a multitude of crap police and medical dramas that Brock liked to watch when they both had days off, even if those days were a seemingly rare occurrence these days. His smile was stopped by another hard yank at his hair as his head fell down slightly. He bit back a cry of pain. 

He started to wonder if they knew that he'd lied.

The sound of a news introduction filled the basement, three sets of heavy and loud footsteps filling the room and denying him his chance to escape. Laughter was quieted down by a reporter starting to speak, a dull and downright boring voice reading through papers worth of things that barely mattered to anyone besides the rich. The stock market, tax cuts, import prices... Nothing that mattered, to Brian at the very least. 

He could barely see the screen through the thin fabric over his eyes, but there was enough visibility for him to see the red banner running over the bottom of the screen. He grimaced when his hair was tugged back again. His breaths were heavy and fast, teeth gritted and his accent thicker than it had been in a while. The last time there was a screen before him, he'd had to listen to his friends and his family plead for him to be brought back to them. He'd been forced to listen to his family cry and sob and scream into a microphone, begging for him to go back to them. 

"Leading on from our last story, police officer Brian Hanby has been announced as dead by a friend and colleague Officer Tyler Wine." She dropped her sentence with a sigh. "The following clips may be triggering towards some viewers." 

Brian's breath hitched, his tired bluebell eyes started to fill with tears.

Dead?

He wasn't dead. 

"I knew Brian for... For ten years," Brock's voice crackled on the microphone, the sound of papers shuffling chasing it quietly. "And they were the best... The best ten years of my life. Part of me still wants to believe that he's out there somewhere, that he's-he's alive, but I know that it's just me trying to cope with the grief before I-I feel it fully..." A deep breath. "There's a list of words to describe him that could go on forever, but I-I think I'm going to let you... Let you think of your own words, because each of us knew a-a different Brian to one another." 

Brian but the inside of his cheek and screwed his eyes shut as he listened to the words flow. His breathing got shallower, his mind racing faster and faster towards giving up. Towards letting all of his 'secrets' go so that it would all be over, so that there wouldn't be a wasted grave in the cemetery for his friends and family to grieve over. A willingness to finally let his morals go, to let his code of conduct fall flat on its face in a futile attempt for another chance at peace. 

"I loved Brian more than I have ever loved another person in my life," Papers shuffled, a loud and ugly sob rattled in the background. "I was lucky to spend a decade with him, to-to know him more and more each waking day." He took a sharp inhale of breath. "He would want us to-to be strong in this time. To spend our grief by... By working towards a better place f-for us all, to create a-a world that we want our children to grow up in... Remind your loved ones how much they mean to you, don't let them forget." 

The screen turned off and a round of laughter echoed. Someone mocked Brock's speech, their voice high and whiny in their pathetic attempt at getting to him. More people laughed. The pipe in the corner dripped loudly into a silver bucket below. 

"Fuck you." Brian spat at whoever was listening, his voice cracking and his mind running in the worlds slowest sprint. "When I get out of here, I-I swear to whatever God ye all believe in... I swear to God!" 

"What?" The person holding his head up laughed softly, their tone cold and harsh. "What're you gonna do, hm? Swipe us all with that lil' baton you march around with?" 

Brian clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palm and distracting from the stabbing pain that ran deeply into his heart. He took a breath, blinking back the tears faster than they managed to appear. 

He couldn't break. 

Breaking would result in death. 

Brian couldn't die.


	2. Dead Man Walking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for blood, minor mentions of implied torture, minor mention of knives

Brian was supposed to be dead, as cliche as that sounded. 

His ripped black jacket was pulled tightly around his body, his hands stuffed into the pockets that held nothing but used tissues and empty gum packets. His bloodshot bluebell eyes scanned his surroundings as if he was surveying the landscape for the first time in his life, which was far from being true. 

Rain poured from above, hitting the ground and bouncing straight back up upon impact. Bright lights from passing cars and lampposts sliced through the downpour, creating small paths through the suburbs of the city. The only sounds were passing cars and fast steps, both followed by splashes from the puddles beside them. The moon was sheltered by a thick layer of clouds and smog, mixed together to create an odd yellow-brown colour that nobody liked to look at, but had to if they wanted to see how small they really were. 

Brian had always been quick - being chosen to play for his local football team in Year 8 had proven that. So, how he'd managed to be caught on such a simple fucking task, was a mystery. He could still see their smug smirks through that thin material over his eyes, even though he'd clawed it off hours ago. He could still feel their cold hands wrapping around his throat, even though they'd stopped that two days ago. He could still feel the traces of sharp knives tracing his legs, even though that had stopped six days ago. 

He lost track of how long he'd been walking after he stopped running. The panic that once filled his chest to the brim had been reduced to small traces of nervousness that barely scratched the surface of his problems. The shakiness that had stopped him from escaping sooner had turned into enough adrenaline to be able to climb through the slotted window and sprint through the quiet neighbourhood, with perfect people in perfect houses with perfect gardens and perfect children. It made him sick to think that he'd grown up across the street. 

An undercover mission to one of the cities largest drug gangs had been turned into a murder conspiracy and too much heartbreak for Brian to handle. Hearing his co-workers cry about his achievements on a TV he couldn't see. Hearing his own mother sob into a microphone while she told stories that he usually would've begged her to not tell. Hearing his own damned fiancé beg and plead into the same microphone for him to be returned home safely, even if it was just his body. He almost broke there and then, but held his own for the sake of their safety, and his life. 

Breaking would result in death, and Brian wasn't ready to die. 

Twenty more minutes passed before he reached his own apartment block, tired and wanting nothing more than to go to bed. How long had it been since he last slept? He'd lost track after the third night. 

He pushed open the glass doors and stepped inside, residing in the sudden crash of warm air that hit him. Plastic plants sat either side of the entranceway, both holding 'please don't water me!' signs in their cream coloured pots. Music and quiet chatter came from all around the place, nothing stood out to him. 

He kept his head down as he headed for the elevator, not wanting to draw anymore attention to himself than he needed. As much as he loved Craig, the nighttime receptionist, the man could talk for England if he had the chance - and Brian wasn't willing to give it to him at this moment in time... Or ever, for that matter.

The silver doors pinged open and Brian stepped inside without hesitation, pushing the 'close doors' button as soon as he was fully in. He didn't want to make smalltalk with anyone else who lived there, since all they seemed to like to talk about was baseball and politics; two things which Brian hated talking about. A mirror was behind the doors, giving Brian a chance to finally see what he looked like after.. How long had it been? 

His eyes were bruised and bloodshot, his lips were swollen and decorated with dried up blood. His throat was purple with bruises, hand marks seemingly burned into his pale skin like he'd been marked as property. The very thought made him want to throw up. 

The voice announcing his arrival at the third floor rang through the silver box and snapped him away from his self-inspection. His hands were slid back into his pockets and his head turned back to the floor as he stepped onto the red and gold floral carpet. A few paintings hung on the peeling wallpaper, the same sort of thing that could be found in the paintings section of IKEA, if IKEA was stuck in the 19th century. 

Slow steps down the hallway were all Brian could manage. He wanted to run towards number 46 more than he wanted to curl up in a warm bed, but the cuts on his legs had started to sting and the exhaustion was finally starting to catch up to him. Quiet sniffles and small shivers occupied the silence that overcame the hallway, probably from the rain and the lack of appropriate clothing for the weather. 

He knocked three times on the dark brown door, shaking his hand as he brought it away. Had his knuckles always been this bruised? The golden '46' and the doorknob looked as though they had been polished a few hours ago, which was more than believable to Brian. A 'WELCOME HOME!' mat was lying on the floor, hiding a few letters and a golden key beneath it. 

He wiped the blood from his lips as best as he could without soap, or water, which wasn't a successful venture by any means. His knuckles still hurt. 

"This better be important, Craig." A familiar voice moved closer and closer to the brown door before Brian, sending the nervousness that idly sat in his chest flying back up to panic in a mere matter of seconds. 

The sound of locks clicking open made Brian wince backwards, squeezing his eyes shut and almost falling from either a loss of balance or fear. He was used to neither of them. 

"It's five in the morning what the hel-... No." 

Brian opened his eyes slightly and was met by nothing but pure shock. Wide eyes, open mouth, unclenched fists. Messy hair, the stolen sports hoodie, a pair of dinosaur slippers that had been bought as a joke one anniversary.

They stood and stared at each other for what felt like an eon, the silence between them floating around and becoming comfortable within itself before it allowed words to enter it.

"Hi, Brock." Brian managed to say, a fragile smile slipping onto his lips for a few seconds before fading back to his expressionless expression. His voice was scratchy and quiet.

"Y-.. You're supposed to be dead." Brock didn't move from where he stood. "Brian, you're dead." Tears seemed to be building in the corners of his eyes, his bottom lip wavering more and more with each passing second.

Brian lifted his bruised hand to the light that came from inside of the apartment and frowned. "I-I feel like I am."

"This is a dream, isn't it?" Brock asked nobody but himself, his unbruised hands flew to his hair and started to pull at the roots. "T-they found your uniform, and your DNA a-and... I'm finally losing it, aren't I?!" 

"I'm real." Brian stepped closer, as well as he could with his legs looking (and feeling) like a 5-year-olds poorly created clay project. "I think I am, anyways."

"I thought you were dead." 

Brian was now nose-to-nose with Brock, who held his gaze as though it were the most precious thing in the world. "Sorry." 

Brock replied with a frown. "What did they... Brian, what the hell did they do to you?" 

"A lot." Brian would've laughed, if it didn't hurt. "More- It was... More than a lot." 

He couldn't remember half of what had happened to him, if he was honest. He vaguely caught memories of cold water and sharp punches, but that was all there was. There was enough evidence dancing on his body to lock them up for life, though he'd be damned if he had to give a detailed report of it to a judge. 

But Brock didn't need to know that.

"You're gonna freeze." Brock pushed the door further open and ushered the other inside, checking both ways before stepping inside and quietly locking the door. "Get inside."

Brian stood in the small hallway of their apartment with his hands still in his pockets and his gaze tilted towards the cream carpet. 

Why did he feel bad for going home?

It was still as clean as it had been on the day he left. The cream carpet had no trace of dirt on it. The small table beside the door still had three sets of keys, a jar of lollipops and a flippable calendar sat on it. The distantly happy memories that he been caught inside of photos had all been polished to hell and back, looking as though they could function better as signalling mirrors than they could as glass panes.

Brock shook his head, as if to wake himself up rather than to deny Brian's upcoming statement. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands, muffling a sniffle with the long sleeve of the stolen hoodie. "I-I need to check you over before the sappy shit."

Brian almost rolled his eyes, but then remembered that his legs looked like the scribbles he received from children whose parents had been taken into the station for one reason or another. The thought of that made his mind race faster than it should've.

How many cases had he missed? Did he even have his job anymore? Did Tyler get his job? If the answer to his last question was yes, how much would he get fined for kicking Tyler's ass out of his job? 

Brock had turned the kettle on and was pulling one of his many first-aid kits down from the cabinet above the stove, seeming much more awake than he had a few minutes ago. "I can't check you out if you're just standin' there." 

"Sure you can, hot stuff." Brian placed one of his hands on his bruised hip and the other behind his head, forcing a stereotypical model face to try and make Brock laugh. He ignored the flash of pain that seeped through his side when he touched it. 

"Brian." The raised eyebrow and the slow blink that came from Brock were enough to make Brian drop his act.

He hated that Brock had mastered the same tone as his mother used, and that he knew exactly how to use it. He also hated the fact that Brock was a paramedic, which always made him better at deciding what was better for him than he was. He couldn't even fake being sick to spend the day off work without being called on his bluff.

Ten reluctant steps and the promise of a cup of tea later, Brian was sat on the marble counter with his cut up legs swinging over the near-empty cabinets and his bruised hands gripping onto the edge. His hood had fallen away from his face when he tried to jump up, like he usually would, but only managed to hurt himself more than he already was. 

Brock made the tea before he even started on Brian, knowing full well that the Irishman wouldn't stop complaining if the promise wasn't filled. Two sugars and a small gloop (as Brian had described it) of milk were all Brock usually put in tea, but this time he made it three sugars. Brian seemed more than happy to drink it, despite the minuscule change. 

He crouched down on the tiled floor to get a closer look at the crossed pattern on Brian's legs, and had to close his eyes for a few seconds before he could even start examining them properly. "They're not deep, which is good, but there's a lot of them."

"Thanks, captain fucking obvious." Brian was expecting his usual playful hit for that, but was instead met by a groan and an eye roll, which was more than disappointing. Instead of retrying his joke, he started to drink his tea.

"It's gonna start to sting. Tell me if it gets too much, okay?" 

"You know my safe word." Brian hummed, placing the now half-empty mug beside him on the counter.

"We're being serious now, Bri." 

"Okay mom." Brian over-dramatically rolled his eyes and leaned his head against the cabinet behind him. "Christ." 

All Brian felt after that was stinging and a sharp pain in his jaw from clenching his teeth. He was watching Brock practically smother his legs in antiseptic cream and bandages, having to screw his face up entirely to stop himself from lashing out at his fiancé. It got to much about a minute in, but he refused to say that it was to preserve what little pride he had left.

"I'm taking you to the hospital tomorrow for some scans, to make sure you're not entirely fucked, but this is as good as I can do for now." Brock stood up and wiped his hands on the legs of his pyjamas. "And then we need to go to the station so nobody can take your job and-and so Evan doesn't go fucking loone-"

"Shut up." Brian grabbed his fiancés face and smiled softly. Their lips were pressed together in a matter of seconds, nothing else mattering in that moment. 

It was filled with longing and a dulled down sense of lust. It was filled with words that would remain unspoken and thoughts that probably would be forgotten by the time morning came. It tasted like dried blood and strong coffee, two things that neither liked. 

Brian had forgotten how much he missed this. He'd forgotten how much he liked feeling someone close to him, without the intention of ruining his life. He'd forgotten how it felt to have someone's lips touch his own, even if they were chapped to hell and back.

"I missed you." Brock pulled away first and rested his forehead against Brians'. "I-... Tyler told me you were a-and al-almost crashed because I... I didn't want you to be dead, Brian. I-I don't want you to be dead."

"I'm not dead." Brian used his thumb to wipe the stray tears from Brock's cheeks. "I might be close, but I'm not there yet."

"Don't say yet." Brock frowned. 

The same deadly silence freely flowed into the room, drowning any chance of salvaging their conversation and refusing to let it back to the surface. Brian had started to drink what was left of his tea while Brock seemed to be having a silent crisis. The silence felt loud enough to shatter glass, as though it was being played through fifty speakers at once. It felt heavy, like Atlas had simply decided to drop the sky and wander leave it for someone else to carry. It tasted poisonous, as though the evil queen from Snow White had spilled her cauldron of apples across the globe. 

Surprisingly, the silence wasn't unusual for the pair. After coming home from work, one would make usually the other a drink while they tried to calm down from whatever they'd seen (or done). It was usually followed by warm blankets, take-out and a shitty movie that neither payed much attention to. On a few rare occasions, it had lead to arguments that resulted in one or the other going back to their parents place for the night, but that hadn't happened in well over eight months, so it was unlikely that it was going to happen.

"I'm tired." Brian placed his mug in the sink and yawned, wincing slightly from a new pain in his jaw. 

Brock glanced at the clock and nodded. "Wanna go to bed?"

Brian nodded.


	3. Don’t Cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow there are no trigger warnings for once this is a shocker

"I swear to God, babe," Brian took a sip of his third whiskey of the night and shook his head, a loud sigh ringing through the living room as the ice collided with his lips. "They're gonna put Tyler on the case in the morning a-and I'm gonna be right back on goddamned traffic duty!"

The candle light from the table lit up his features bright orange, the colour softly flickering back and forth. His uniform was unbuttoned and the shirt completely untucked from his belt. His hair was a complete mess, his spare hand still running through what little gel there was left from that morning. The golden ring on his left hand glittered under the light, sitting on the middle section of his finger rather than the bottom from his incessant fiddling with it. 

It'd been three weeks since Brian showed up at the door, covered in his own blood. He'd thrown himself straight back into his job, ignoring everyone around him who told him to take time off to recover from what he'd been through. Arguments had become more common between the pair ever since, both letting their pent-up frustration get the better of their logic in the heat of the moment. Both still went to work in the mornings and came home at different times, each telling their individual tail about what they'd seen. 

"I don't know what you want me to say." Brock didn't look up from his papers, tapping a ballpoint pen against his temple with a small frown. 

"Neither do I." Brian tugged at his hair and continued to pace up and down the living room. "I'm just so fuckin'... Pissed off at everything." He downed the rest of his drink, the iced amber chased closely by a choked-out cough. 

Brock set his pen and pad beside him, soft and tired eyes watching his fiancé practically dance through his frustration. He didn't say much, but he knew that his presence was almost enough to be a comfort mechanism. He fiddled with his ring, twisting it gently around his finger and letting his gaze fall down to the soft gold colour that followed him wherever he went. His throat was dry from having to yell over the sound of sirens at accident scenes and talking almost nonstop to kids in the emergency room to distract them from the consultants that worked on their injuries. His mind was filled to the brim with images of things that he didn't want to remember, like a VHS tape that was caught in an unforgiving loop that would never end. 

"Breathe." Brock leaned forwards and pushed his hair back, his nails scratching softly against his forehead and left small red marks in their trail. His voice was quiet. "I don't wanna go back to the hospital tonight..." 

Brian placed his glass on the table and took a deep breath, both of his hands entangling themselves in his hair and tugging at the roots. "I'm so-so fuckin' annoyed 'cause I know what I'm doing and they don't see that at all! It's not my fault, right?"

"No," Brock fell back into the seat with a quiet groan. His eyes fell closed within seconds. "It isn't." 

"But Tyler said that I'm 'too close' to the case and 'a danger' to myself if I keep on it! How's that fair?" 

"Maybe Tyler's right." Brock muttered, his voice louder than before. "I mean, you're stressed to hell and back and it clearly isn't doing your mental state any good... Some time away from that case wouldn't kill you." 

Brian stopped pacing, his bright eyes turning to Brock in an almost accusing manner. "You're not- You're not serious, are you?"

"I'm deadly serious, Bri." Brock didn't move from where he was set. "Ryan already said that you should go see a therapist for the shit that happened, and going straight back to the scene is just gonna... It's gonna bring back the trauma that I know you're ignoring." 

"I don't have any trauma." Brian argued, his jaw agape and his eyebrows furrowed. 

"You do, Brian..." Brock's forefinger and his thumb pinching the bridge of his nose out of frustration. "The nightmares, the flashbacks, the screaming when you wake up, th-the anxiety you get when we go to see your mom and dad? That's all the result of trauma... I get why you want to come across as strong and brave, but you can't always be like that." Brock sat back up. "You need to see a therapist before it gets uncontrollable and you end up..." He didn't need to finish his sentence for Brian to know what he was saying.

"I don't need therapy, baby." Brian sat next to him on the couch, resting the papers and the pen on his lap. "I can handle it on my own." 

"You can't." Brock's jaw clenched without him realising. "I feel so goddamn helpless because you... You're pushing yourself to the edge and if you keep doing this... I-I don't want to go to an actual funeral for you, Brian!" 

Poisonous silence filled the room. The TV played a crappy medical drama, characters panicking over things that wouldn't be panicked over by medical professionals. The candle flickered softly, pale oranges and yellows casting dancing shadows over the eggshell coloured walls. A timeline of their relationship was framed on the walls, everything from the day that they'd bumped into one another in the ER until the week that Brian proposed. There was still space for more in the frames, space to be filled with more and more memories until fate made its final decision for them both. Neither wanted fate to decide. 

"You aren't gonna go to my funeral... Hey, no, don't cry... Please don't cry." Brian pulled him closer, holding him tightly and pressing a constant stream of soft kisses to the top of his head. "I'm sorry. Please don't cry."

Brock let out a shaky breath, hot and salty tears tripping over one another as they traversed down his face. His hands balled up into fists around the material of Brian's uniform, his nails digging into it and leaving faint indents in it from how hard he was gripping onto it. 

"You can-..." Brian pressed another round of kisses to his head and pulled him even closer. "You can call Ryan tomorrow a-and I'll go see him, if it's gonna make you feel any better."

"Th-Thank you."


	4. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: major character death 
> 
> the dialogue is purely unseen flashbacks, not any actual communication within the scene.

The frames on the eggshell walls had been taken down, all held in a brown carboard box, destined to never see the light of day again. Condolence cards and mountains of multicoloured, sorrowful flowers sat in a black bag, pitiful words and brown leaves left to rot amongst one another as they waited to be moved outside. Old clothes were folded neatly into suitcases, hiding books that weren't interesting anymore. A 'World's Best Boyfriend!' mug sat on its side in the sink, still stained with the black coffee from a week ago. Pens and papers were placed into folders labelled in his neat handwriting, each and every one facing away from the world. The bed was half made, one half completely untouched. The pillows still a mess, the sheets still ruffled, the water bottles still lodged between the mattress and the cabinet for 'easy access', as it had once been put.

The happy memories were the ones he had to keep, as Ryan had told him. Their first date, the day they bought their apartment, the time they tried (and failed) to prank one another on valentines day. The sleepless nights that lead to both calling in sick for the day, just to spend the morning next to one another. The evenings ridden with horrendously bad TV and takeout from that pizza place a few blocks away. The days when they'd sneak out of work to see each other in the small coffee shop beside the hospital, both laughing like schoolchildren when they reminded each other of what they were doing. The day that Brian had found his way out of the basement and went straight back home, rather than to the police.

An empty whiskey glass sat on the table, only a few droplets of the bitter amber left to sit in the crystal. An empty whiskey bottle sat in the bin, the cap missing and the label completely torn off. 

 

"Le-Let me see him, Tyler!"

 

He laid on the floor, a stuffed animal clutched in his arms. His gaze was set on the roof above him, tearful eyes watching the idle light bulb as though it was going to suddenly spring to life and perform a pas de deux before his eyes. Trenches of tears were dug into his skin, the puffiness of his cheeks supplying enough ground for it to happen properly. Brown hair was a mess, greasy and unwashed after the funeral. He hadn't changed out of his suit yet, even though it had been two days. It still smelled of his cologne, soft and warm as opposed to the strong and sharp that usually floated around their small apartment. 

Two golden rings glittered on his left hand, bittersweet reminders of what could've been if fate wasn't as cruel as she so often is. 

Rain poured outside, the droplets bouncing loudly from the windowpanes and reflecting themselves yellow beneath the streetlights. Cars sped through the streets, music loud and drivers careless about the world moving slowly around them. Purple lightening cracked overhead, chased by loud crashes of dark grey thunder that mapped out the sky without guidance. 

 

"Don't you fucking dare die on me!" 

 

A loud and ugly sob hovered over his head as he started to cry harder. His chest rattling and his shoulders shaking more and more with each passing second. He turned onto his side and curled himself up, burying his face into the teddy that Jonathan had gifted him the day after the news broke amongst their friendship groups. It smelled like him, so much so that it was painful to keep it as close as it was. But that didn't stop him from hugging it even closer. 

The tears traversed down the bridge of his nose, falling hard and fast against the soft carpet below. Blue eyes screwed shut. He bit the inside of his lip to stop another sound, the outside quivering harder and harder as he attempted to contain his sorrow.

 

"I-I can't do this without you! Please!" 

 

Brian sat up only to fall right back down with another hard and heavy sob attacking his chest. His jaw clenched, his teeth grinded against one another, his nose and his ears were wet with the remains of tears. Loud curses flowed from the base of his throat, choked out and full of meaning that his words never usually held. He felt broken, both inside and out. As though his soul had been sent through a shredder until there was nothing left but scraps of who he was. As though he was back in that damned basement, dingy and dark with people laughing at him at every waking moment. 

He wondered if Brock had done this after he was announced as dead. Had he lied on the floor and sobbed until his head hurt and his chest felt like it was on the verge of imploding? Had he held it all inside? Had he struggled to do the simplest of things? 

 

"Don't you dare- Brock, just hold on for me, please... I-I don't wanna- I can't do this without you!"

 

It was difficult to do anything, these days; even getting out of bed seemed like a chore. Packing Brock's things away was the hardest part of it all, even with Ryan and Evan both coming over to help sort things out. He'd locked himself in the bathroom at work too many times to count on one hand, telling his friends to fuck off whenever they offered to drive him home. 

Home was the last place he wanted to be, anymore.


End file.
